I don't doubt that Sir Paul Stephenson leaves the biggest police job in the country with his integrity intact. Everybody says so. Yvette Cooper said he was very brave to jump. Good for her. Impolite to speak ill of the career dead.

"Does anyone listen to Sir Paul Stephenson, commissioner of the Metropolitan police, or Boris Johnson, his political master, and suppose that we can rely on them for this or anything impinging on security or public order in the capital? … Last night's debacle is merely another in a sequence of horror policing operations that have occurred on Sir Paul's watch. The G20 kettling row, the death of Ian Tomlinson and the lies that surrounded it. The heavy-handed operation at the Tamil protest demonstration that drew much criticism from MPs … "

Does anyone think Sir Paul's tenure has represented anything like strong leadership? I don't. But then, perhaps it was never supposed to.

Tories, I said back then, "like him because he is not Ian Blair, the loud-mouthed lefty they felt obliged to get rid of. Blair had many faults, on that we can all agree. But what also irked the mayoral administration was his politics and the fact that they found him insufficiently biddable. Stephenson gives them no such problem."

So that was the long and short of it. The commissioner was liked by the Tories and the media right for what he wasn't, rather than for his abilities. One foul-up followed another and ultimately he strayed into phone hacking – where the handling of the initial allegations made public by the Guardian and dismissed out of hand by Sir Paul's crack team left him in an unenviable position. The connection to Neil Wallis and his acceptance of a freebie at Champneys to recuperate after illness this year were errors of judgement. But the fact that John Yates's day-long inquiry into the hacking allegations occurred on his watch and was, presumably, concluded as it was with his connivance, would ultimately have done for him anyway.

He says he leaves with crime levels in the Met at "a 10-year low", but at the same time many officers are deeply unhappy about the prospects of budget cuts – which don't appear to have elicited much criticism from him – and the possibility that, under government plans, chief officers will, henceforth, be subject to even more political interference. Key members of the Met Police Authority have long complained of a lack of grip or direction.

And what do we learn from his sorry two-and-a-half year tenure? That the chief officer who can keep the politicians happy may not be the best chief officer for the job. That the biggest job in policing needs a big strong character. That whoever assumes the mantle needs to have political nous and an eye for presentation but needs to know the perils of getting too close to journalists or politicians. It's a lonely job and it needs a particular skillset to inspire public confidence. Perhaps Sir Paul didn't have it. End of story.

• Comments on this article are set to remain open for 24 hours from thetime of publication but may be closed overnight